October 20th - Thomas Crews

Another day of cycling in Georgia - another voter in favor of the Fair Tax.

I normally shy away from repeating issues on consecutive days, but the voters in the “Peach State” are tax-focused thanks in part to the campaign being waged by incumbent Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss as new hero of the working man, Sam Wurzelbacher or “Joe the Plumber.”

Thomas Crews has worked long and hard days for the last five years in order to make a better life for himself. According to him it started to pay off last year when the 23-year-old day laborer for GeoLoops, Inc., a green contractor specializing in heating and cooling systems, was promoted to vice president. However Crews sees his ascension as the bi-product of hard work and his career track is to be the owner - the “heir apparent” to the current owner, James Cook.

Thomas Crews of Fayetteville, Ga on October 20th, 2008

Crews is happy with the sacrifices he’s made for his recent success, which makes him irritated with candidates promising to use tax dollars to buy bad mortgages and bailout Wall Street. But  the most infuriating of all the proposals from the campaign trail are the proposed tax increases on small businesses.

“I have done so much to learn about the business and put so much energy into it I’ll be damned if I’ll let somebody who isn’t working take that money away from me,” Crews said.

His frustration lies with the the proposed tax increases promised by Sen. Barack Obama. As Crews sees it, under the Obama plan small businesses like GeoLoops, Inc. will be punished for expanding their business to include more employees and potentially higher profits.

“Why would I want to earn more than 250 thousand dollars when I’d get taxed more and bring home less in the higher tax bracket?” asked Crews. “I’ll cut jobs if I had to just in order to make sure we don’t fall into that new tax bracket.”

While the math behind the Obama plan isn’t that simple, Crews is worried that the current structure of the American tax code is punishing those who work hard to achieve success and that they are being unduly burdened by those who can, but won’t help themselves.

“Most people in the is country get the same education and opportunities, but I recognize some don’t and we have an obligation to help. But I would rather do that through my own charity, not a government mandated system of wealth sharing.”

On the Issues

The Fair Tax explained, sorta